Tag: coronal hole

A solar outburst, called a coronal mass ejection, paired with a high-speed particle blast from a recent coronal hole may liven the sky with auroras both Tuesday and Wednesday nights (May 16-17). Things will get off to a gentle start tomorrow beginning around nightfall when a minor G1 geomagnetic storm is expected to commence. Typically, the… Read More

This week has real aurora potential. Tonight through Wednesday night, the NOAA space weather forecast calls for minor to moderate geomagnetic storms during overnight hours. Sometimes solar storms called flares are responsible for aurora; they blast bits and pieces of the sun (electrons and protons) toward Earth at extremely high speed. During the biggest solar… Read More

The aurora’s been practically out of sight the past couple months unless you live in central Canada and points north. For U.S. observers, only a couple of weak displays — usually a mustache of pale green light just above the northern horizon — have been sighted. The scene might get livelier soon with a minor… Read More

Most of us live on a 24-hour cycle beginning with waking up, going about our jobs or other activities and then sleeping before waking up again. We call it the circadian rhythm from the Latin circa dia or “about a day.” The sun has a rhythm too, called the 11-year solar cycle. During that time, we… Read More

Mars won’t have to look hard to find a dance partner for the New Year’s Eve ball. It can only be Neptune. Beautiful, unavoidable Neptune. The Red Planet sashays up to the Blue Planet on Saturday evening Dec. 31, and you can see the sparkling couple using a pair of 50mm (or larger) binoculars or a… Read More